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Facebook post swamps animal rehab with mascara brushes

Asheville nonprofit Appalachian Wild is receiving mascara wands, used to clean animal fur, from around the world. Thanks to a Facebook post and Yahoo video that went viral.

An Appalachian Wildlife Rescue rehabilitator holds a baby cottontail. The Asheville nonprofit rescued more than 1,700 wild animals in Western North Carolina last year.(Photo: Courtesy of Appalachian Wildlife Rescue)

ASHEVILLE – Mascara never looked so good on Asheville’s injured and orphaned ducks, squirrels and bunnies.

Through the magic of social media and magic mascara wands, a simple Facebook post by an Asheville wildlife rehabilitator has gone viral, swamping the nonprofit Appalachian Wild with mascara applicators used for cleaning baby animal fur.

Appalachian Wild co-founder Savannah Trantham said she learned the trick of the trade from a fellow wildlife rehabilitator who used mascara wands to remove fly eggs or larva from a wild animal.

So on March 10 she made this post on her personal Facebook page: “Did you know something as simple as an old mascara wand can help wildlife?!? We use mascara brushes to help remove fly eggs and larva from the fur of animals. They work great because the bristles are so close together!! Do you have old mascara just lying around in a drawer?”

The first package of wands arrived three days later from Priscilla Gutierrez, a makeup artist in California who as a combat veteran said her life was saved by her bulldog

“I have a deep love for all animals,” she wrote. “I was extremely touched after I saw the post.”

Thousands of others from 40 states, Puerto Rico, and across the world were also moved to action.

The original post has been shared on Facebook more than 60,000 times, and a video created by Yahoo had reached more than 3.2 million views as of Tuesday.

With the views came a torrent of the little makeup wands, some used and scrubbed with soapy water, some new, all to help orphaned and injured wildlife in Western North Carolina.

“I put up the original post while cleaning out my own old makeup. Part of the mission of Appalachian Wild is to provide conservation education to the community,” Trantham said. “A great way to connect people with wildlife is to share little ways that they can make a big difference.”

To date, Appalachian Wild has received 11,474 wands, 1,129 of them recycled, meaning they are being diverted from a landfill.

The wands are now a movement, called Wands for Wildlife, and widespread “Wandraisers,” including one by makeup artists with NBC’s “The Blacklist” and others by college sororities, Girl Scout troops, salons, spas, cosmetology schools and high schools are happening across the country. Sophie Uliano featured the Wands for Wildlife program on Hallmark's “Home & Family TV Show” on April 21.

Attention from the social media mascara mega-blitz has also brought in nearly $800 so far, as well as desperately needed supplies such as syringes for feeding baby animals, dishwashing liquid for bathing them, surgical gloves, surgical instruments, blankets and animal food.

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Kimberly Brewster, co-founder of Appalachian Wildlife Rescue, holds an Eastern Painted turtle at the home of a wildlife rehabilitator.(Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)

“I’m not really sure what’s happening. It’s the most bizarre experience I’ve ever had in my life,” said Kimberly Brewster, a co-founder of Appalachian Wild, who goes to the Skyland post office twice a week to check on the goodies.

Among them a slew of recycled wands from Cosmopolitan Magazine in New York and 18 recycled wands from Alaska. The package of a single mascara wand that arrived Monday from Hong Kong had Brewster giggling almost beyond control.

“I open the package and I realize there’s a person on the other side of the planet that cares so much about helping wild animals, they took the time to clean off their mascara wand, go to the post office and send it to us in North Carolina,” Brewster said.

Growing need to help wildlife

The mission of Appalachian Wild, a nonprofit established in 2014, is to coordinate the needs of wildlife rehabilitation in Western North Carolina, provide care for injured and orphaned wildlife, support the wildlife rehabilitation network, and educate the community about conservation.

Trantham, a certified wildlife rehabilitator and assistant animal curator at the WNC Nature Center, and Brewster, a public relations executive and former director of the Friends of the WNC Nature Center, realized there was a gaping void.

The closest large facilities to Buncombe County are the Blue Ridge Wildlife Institute at Lees-McRae College and the Raptor Center in Charlotte, Brewster said.

The Asheville nonprofit Appalachian Wildlife Rescue's Wands for Wildlife movement has netted thousands of mascara wands from across the country to clean baby animals.(Photo: Courtesy Appalachian Wildlife Rescue)

Wild for Life is a wildlife rehabilitation center on Possum Trot Road in Asheville, which opened as a nonprofit in 2000. It is taking in birds of prey only, said co-founder Mary Beth Bryman.

The WNC Nature Center had been triaging more than 1,000 injured and orphaned wildlife a year before it stopped taking wild animals last fall as the facility goes through a major renovation. That makes the need for a wildlife rehab center in the Asheville dire, Brewster said.

Appalachian Wild treated almost 1,500 animals in 2015. That grew to more than 1,700 in 2016 and is expected to reach close to 2,000 this year, Brewster said.

The spring is an especially busy time when wildlife, birds and rabbits are having their babies, putting more out in the world to fall from trees, get separated from their parents or get run over by cars.

Brewster surmises the short winters have led to animals having multiple litters and more orphans.

“People are definitely more aware and coming across animals more. People want to be out in the wild and hiking the woods, and when there are storms in spring, we get a lot of calls,” she said.

The recent donation of wands and supplies will allow the nonprofit to be fully stocked when it opens its donated triage center on leased land in Candler. The all-volunteer staff will include a rotation of certified rehabbers to work on fly egg infestations, broken bones, and squished legs and wings of small mammals, reptiles and amphibians, as well as raptors, waterfowl and songbirds. Wildlife rehabilitators in Asheville now work out of their homes.

As Brewster steps over boxes of donations crammed into every corner of her Arden home – she has also stashed boxes at her in-laws’ home and in friends’ closets – she said she can now focus her fundraising efforts on the operations budget, a goal of $50,000, and $15,000 for unexpected facility needs. The triage facility is being remodeled and should open within eight weeks.

She is also trying to trademark "Wands for Wildlife," but is encouraging followers to donate wands to their local rehab centers.

“I’ve contemplated: What is inspiring people to help?” Brewster said. “You can tell a lot are millennials who are seeing this post on social media. They have mascara at home and they understand that it will be recycled and used to help animals. There’s something in the way the message was communicated.”

Brewster said she cries and laughs every day now, emotional over the little critters that are getting love from around the world, and the mighty power of social media.

“The world is a good place,” she said. “People care.”

Want to help wildlife?

To donate mascara wands or other items, or for questions on orphaned or injured wildlife, visit www.appalachianwild.org. Follow on social media at Facebook: @AppWild; Instagram: @AppalachianWild; and Twitter: @SavingWildLives.